Y2K9 Bug Strikes: Gears of War PC Disabled by Date

BOOM widget 76109
Many users are reporting that the PC version of Gears of War was entirely disabled yesterday when the game's digital certificate expired.

The expiration date on the certificate was apparently set for yesterday, January 28. When the date switched over, the game became unplayable.

"This was a surprise to us too," said Epic programmer Joe Graf on the company's official forum. "We have been notified of the issue and are working with Microsoft to get it resolved."

A similar issue recently disabled Turbine's Lord of the Rings Online. As in that situation, users have found a simple workaround for the Gears problem: setting the system clock back to a date prior to the expiration.